Witch Hunt. Syd Moore
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I decided to distract myself with some brain candy so I dumped myself on the sofa and flicked on the TV. Out of habit I surfed through to my preferred twenty-four-hour news channel.
There was some kind of kerfuffle outside County Hall. I couldn’t get what was going on at first then, as the report built up the eyewitness accounts, I sussed that Robert Cutt had been visiting and got an egg in the face from a couple of bystanders protesting about media monopolies.
The mere image of him flashing up on the screen made my stomach tighten. Though he’d moved to England in his thirties, his white-blond hair accentuated a classic American face: fantastic cheekbones, wide jaw, good teeth and eyes that showed hyena-like cunning mixed with the blank dumbness of a circling shark. Sometimes in a certain light, it looked like there was nothing going on behind those startling peepers. Like the man had long said goodbye to his soul.
Yet none of this did anything to detract from the overall effect; even his most vociferous opponents had to admit that Robert Cutt was a very handsome devil indeed. Regrettably the well-groomed exterior and contrived panache concealed a business savvy that was ruthless and pretty unethical in its hunger for power.
I couldn’t help thinking, as I watched the sixty-something politician brushing away the cameras, that despite the egging he looked rather pleased with himself. It was gross: there was something about the man that really creeped me out. It wasn’t just the fact that, a few months ago, he’d been coaxed into revealing in a rather probing and frank interview that he believed that men were infinitely better adapted to leadership than the female of the species. Following on from that another documentary had revealed his friendship with TV evangelist, Pat Robertson.
I knew about Mr Robertson before I had ever heard of Cutt: a friend once bought me a joke present for my birthday. It was a mug that had one of Mr Robertson’s quotes printed on it. It read: ‘The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.’
Bless his little cotton socks.
After that documentary Cutt did a fair bit of political manoeuvring to put a respectable distance between their camps. Even so, there were similarities; both advocated a stable family should have a mother and father (one of each sex). And there was an insidious suggestion that women should remain within the home, though it wasn’t stated explicitly. Nor was it their conviction that human nature was ever nurtured. It was more about genetics and nature. But that was easy for him to say, coming as he did, from a line of pilgrim Baptists back in the good old US of A. Mr Cutt made a big deal of those roots and set himself up as something of a paragon of ancestral virtue.
God knows how he came to be a political contender in the UK.
And yet, it was none of that that had me reflexing into gag response when I saw his nauseatingly beautiful face. No. It was something about his eyes. The hard grey circles reminded me of someone.
I’d just never been able to put my finger on who.
I almost convulsed with repulsion as the screen showed him ushered by bodyguards into a black BMW: just before he got in, he waved a two-fingered victory sign at reporters.
The scene had dulled my mood, leaving me with a restlessness that I couldn’t counter. I switched channels trying to find some comedy. Unfortunately the smarmy mogul had dampened me, so I cut my losses and retired to bed.
I was just sinking into a light slumber when I heard that noise again: a scratching followed by a creaking of sorts. When I strained my ears, I could tell it was right above me, in the loft.
I groaned and buried my head under the duvet, underlining my mental note to call pest control in the morning.
But it got louder.
I pulled the duvet down from my face and stared at the ceiling. ‘Shut up,’ I yelled at it.
Magically, the shuffling stopped.
Chapter Six
The offices of Portillion Publishing were on level six of the larger umbrella company’s head office. The sleek glassy building had won several architectural awards for innovation and was set in the financial heart of London. I use the term ‘heart’ loosely: it was at the centre of the complex of roads and warrens that calls itself the City of London. I’d never felt comfortable about being in that place, with all those bankers. The lack of vegetation, the inhuman scale of the buildings, the overriding predominance of grey, the uniform of suits, the set pace of walking, all combined to give the impression that when you got off the train at Fenchurch Street, you entered a mechanised world set up purely to produce money. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with the individuals as such – some of my best friends worked in the City – but en masse, the whole set-up was overwhelming.
As I walked towards the river, I had the sense of being swallowed up or, perhaps, it was more like joining in. Whatever, I was almost relieved as I went through the revolving doors of Cutt’s castle.
Portillion Publishing was originally situated in Mayfair, but when the mogul acquired it, the outfit was ‘streamlined’. Accusations of asset stripping and general nastiness were flung around but faded once the concern was relocated to this nerve centre. It was enormous, shaped like a glimmering spire: a cathedral to Capitalism.
The offices came off an inner courtyard that had the full height of the thirty-five-storey structure. Large glass elevators reached skywards to the ceiling where a crystal pyramid capped the top. Chrome fittings and mirrored pillars amplified the light. The effect was dazzling.
A tall, willowy PA in a black designer suit collected me from the reception area. Her chic asymmetric bob and red lipstick were so impressive I felt immediately underdressed in my beloved vintage dress and boots. To cover up my nerves I tried to make small talk as we walked towards the lifts.
‘This is a fantastic building,’ I gestured upwards. ‘So much light.’
Delphine, as she introduced herself, sniffed. ‘Yes. It’s a great place to work.’ Her voice dragged with vague ennui.
‘Is Cutt based here?’ I asked, following the tap-tapping of her kitten heels across the marble floor.
‘Mr Cutt’s office is there,’ she indicated a large tinted glass window that covered the whole of one side of the first floor.
‘All of it?’
Delphine managed to crack a smile. ‘It’s an expansive concern.’
His office directly faced the entrance, security checks and reception. ‘He gets a good view of everybody coming in
and out that way, I suppose.’
‘Oh, Mr Cutt is an extremely energetic man. Not one to drop the ball. Robert likes to keep his eye on things.’
‘Quite literally,’ I said and stitched on a chuckle. ‘He can more or less see everyone from that vantage point.’
She didn’t reply.
The short journey upwards was uncomfortable. We stood either side of the lift doors staring out of the glass sheets. Delphine didn’t speak and I didn’t bother to try any more conversation. She was one tough nut to crack, I thought silently, tension creeping along my shoulders as I contemplated the kind of fella this Felix Knight might be. His email had an old-fashioned jauntiness to it that had me picturing a white-haired man in his fifties, in a sort of geography teacher get-up – leather-elbowed tweed jacket and cords. But after the intimidating pillar of reserve that was his secretary, I was beginning to think he was probably more of a reptilian guy. To command authority over Delphine, he’d surely have to be older, wiser and far, far colder.
Both my visions were wrong. Felix Knight turned out to be a phenomenally friendly sort. My age, or possibly younger. He had fantastically clear skin that gave the impression he was fresh out of the shower. Despite an impeccable tailor, the